Thinking Out Loud

Hello Friends!

We've had days of sea fog, also known regionally as a haar, har, hare, harl, sea fret, and many other things depending where you live.   I just call it grey and cold!  It's finally lifted, so hopefully we'll see some better days ahead.  I'd love my oriental poppies to get a chance.

So, my friends, I haven't asked in a while, but how are you doing now?   Have you been vaccinated yet?  Are you still wearing a mask?  How does getting back to whatever state of normal we're in make you feel?  What makes you concerned, and what doesn't over how we are moving forward?

I found I was starting to settle a bit as we eased out of lockdown, but now, suddenly, our peninsula is heaving with tourists.  Everywhere you turn, it's chock a block, full to bursting with strangers.  Worse, they think it's business as usual, no social distancing or awareness, very few wearing masks.  Yesterday I overheard a couple standing on the pavement outside a shop say they weren't going into shops as masks were required to be worn.  They even questioned it might be the law!  Hello! It is the law.

Numbers are on the rise again and they're talking of halting the easing of the current lockdown.   When will this cycle end?

On the plus side, I've had my second vaccine, so now it's three weeks and counting down to hopefully the best protection this will give.  However, I am not instilled with the confidence of many, and I am not alone in remaining wary of others.  Even once vaccinated we're being told to continue to observe Hands, Face, Space with anyone outside our bubble.

For a long time I have said I can't draw.  Words are powerful tools, so I've now changed my mindset.  I now say, "I can draw, just not very well . . . yet."  This is why my ICAD submissions this year are all drawn, either with pencil, brush, or marker, freehand. Practice!  No hiding place for mistakes.  It's quite a challenge.

In recent years I often found myself spending hours every day on each card.  I then began to question this.  Hours of work on a cheap, disposable piece of low quality card just didn't make sense.  That level of work and effort deserved better.  So, I am setting a time limit of no more than 30 minutes actual working time per card {I do allow extra time for paint to dry}.

Then I got to thinking about mutability as part of art practice.  Without going too deep on this, think about Antony Gormley's "Another Place" on Crosby Sands, which is subject to corrosion and change through an endless circle of the tide and the elements.  If you ever get a chance to see it, it is spectacular.  Change is part of art, and sometimes those changes happen to major, globally important art works; even the act of putting those first marks down is change, so it's time to stop being precious over the quality of the paper.  It's part of the deal.

It's a challenge working on an index card, it's such cheap, inferior, paper on which nothing reacts how you expect it to, and certainly nothing like you get on proper artist quality paper, whether it's water colour paper, pastel paper, Yupo, or anything else.  Index cards are so absorbent it's easy to rub a hole in it, and you can't blend, or move your mediums around easily. Alcohol inks just seep in and stay put. Not much fun in that, they're designed to be blended.  And, no two packs of index cards are the same.  It is, though, a good way to do some mark making, and if it doesn't work out, well, it's only a penny or two lost on the card, not £££'s on a sheet of water colour card stock.  Swings and roundabouts; roundabouts and swings.

By sticking to "dry" mediums, I am also keeping my cards flat.  The minute you put anything wet on an index card {glue, gesso, acrylic} in any quantity, your card just buckles and rolls up, and that makes it more difficult to work the curved surface.  In previous years I've used a lot of gesso or acrylic to give me a non absorbent surface and spent ages flattening my cards out.

In light of this, I may fulfil a promise I made to rework some of my favourites on proper watercolour paper or card.  I already want to rework several that I've done to date, not just from this year!  However, in keeping with the ICAD ethos, this won't happen until after this year's challenge is over.

So far, I've worked from my own, original photographs, but for this next one I drew from an actual stem picked from the garden.

6/61 Quaking Grass 

7/61

A Bunnies' Ears cactus.  

This one wasn't easy as I used water colour paint {Inktense} and index cards are cheap and tend to dissolve easily.

8/61

A couple of cactus pals in Inktense with Posca and fine liner

9/61

Monstera, or Swiss Cheese Plant

Although I don't own one of these now, I have had several in the past and with trying to find 61 different things growing in my cottage garden and house plants, everything helps!  Graphitint paints

10/61

Even the weeds get drawn! Mind, this convolvulus, or Morning Glory, also called Bindweed, can be spectacular with it's pristine, white flowers.

I drew this using the negative space technique with alcohol pens and Posca.

11/61

Feeling rather tired, possibly after my vaccination, so just used a Brusho ground with a line drawing for a stylised Arum Lily

12/61 

Daisies, inspired by my lawn, of course.  Inktense wash, Posca pens

As I type this, it's just about 8:00 a.m. and already it's 22C in my living room.  The sun hasn't even come around the cottage yet, the doors and windows are open, curtains closed, and it's going to be scorchio, I think!

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well